| “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). |
| “He is able also to save them to the uttermost [completely] that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). |
| “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:11). |
| Here we have three verses that all talk about being saved, yet when we read them, they seem a bit confusing. Let me illustrate it by a story. Many years ago a young woman, about eighteen years old, had just received the Lord Jesus as her Savior. She was so overjoyed that she wanted to tell everyone else about it. A few days later an older Christian man came to visit at her home, and since she had not met him before, she immediately asked him if he was saved. He gave her an unusual answer, for he said, “Yes, I was saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved.” Naturally the girl was somewhat confused by this answer, and asked him what he meant. |
| He then began to explain to her that salvation is spoken of in three different ways in the Word of God, and that it is important to understand the difference between them. First of all, when we accept Christ as our Savior, the Bible clearly tells us that we are saved. Our first verse today is very clear on this, and it never needs to be repeated. When we are saved once from the penalty of our sins, we are saved forever. |
| However, in our second verse today, another way of being saved is brought before us. It says that the Lord Jesus is able to save them completely, because He “ever liveth to make intercession for them.” This is not speaking of eternal salvation from the penalty of our sins, but rather being saved from the power of sin in our lives. Even though we are truly saved, we all know that we still have the old sinful nature within us. We are still capable of sinning, even though we now have a new life in Christ. |
| But God does not want us to continue to sin. The Apostle Paul could say to the Romans, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1). When the Lord Jesus died, the Bible tells us that “He died unto sin” (Romans 6:10). He died and rose again, and that is a picture of how we too have died unto sin. We have put the old sinful nature behind us, and now we belong to Christ. He wants us to let that new nature display itself in our lives. |
| We will still be tempted to sin, and sad to say, we may sometimes sin. But God wants to keep us from that, and through the intercession of the Lord Jesus up in heaven, we are “being saved” from the power of sin every day. You may have to think about this a little, as it is hard at first to understand, but it is most important to realize. Many dear believers do not understand deliverance from the power of sin, and do not lead victorious lives. But the Lord wants us to do so, and the Lord Jesus is there to help us. |
| Tomorrow we will speak a little about the last way of being saved. |
